“Not right now. I’m not even sure the rope is connected to the disappearance.”
Laurie took the bags and motioned for Floyd to follow her. At the reception desk she had him sign into a log and clip a visitor’s badge to his shirt. Then she led him into the bowels of the building. She stopped at a desk and filled out a request form from a tray, placed the bags and the completed form in a second tray, then signed a chain of evidence tag.
“Are you interested in lunch?” she asked, checking her watch.
“I guess I’ve been up for ten hours now, so I suppose it must be lunch time.”
Laurie led him out a back door to a parking lot surrounded by a high fence topped with razor wire. Floyd noted the security cameras mounted on the corners of the two-story building. The inside of the car was stifling in the ninety-degree heat. The seat belt buckle was so hot Floyd could barely touch it long enough to secure it.
As they drove out of the lot, Floyd asked, “If the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has to have that kind of security around their parking lot, what do the local businesses need?”
“Maybe they pay better protection money than the state,” Laurie joked.
“Will my car be safe until we get back?”
“If you locked it, I expect it’ll still be there.” Laurie hesitated then added, “You did lock it, didn’t you?”
“I did, but I think it’s sad that you have to lock up a police car to keep it from being stolen when it’s parked in front of BCA headquarters.”
“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto,” Laurie said with a laugh. “You are so spoiled living up in the wilderness. People all over the real world lock their cars and houses all the time. It’s prudent.”
“It’s sad to live where you have to worry that someone’s going to steal your car from a major street in broad daylight.”
The conversation drifted to crime in Pine City, and they spent an hour eating Greek food at a restaurant on Grand Avenue while Floyd explained about the garage sale camera, the pictures, Aaron Roberts’ disappearance, Melissa Schotten’s rape, and Ken Solstad’s car accident.
Laurie listened intently, and then mused, “It sounds like Ken Solstad killed Aaron Roberts and dumped the body somewhere before he drove off for Missouri. I wonder if he was feeling so much regret when he got to Iowa that he drove his car into the truck intentionally.”
“I suppose we’ll never know. Ken hadn’t slept so it’s entirely plausible that he fell asleep at the wheel. On the other hand, if he killed Aaron he’d had time for the adrenaline to wear off and plenty of time to brood over his actions. Maybe he felt some remorse.”
“Do you think they were only drinking?” Laurie asked. “Every little town had a meth lab back then, and meth makes people do stupid things. Maybe Ken Solstad’s anger and lack of self-control were enhanced by drugs.”
“Interesting thought. I suppose some dabbling in meth might fit with the events. I’ll have to give that some thought when I’m awake,” Floyd said, yawning and feeling the after-effects of the large meal.
Laurie insisted on picking up the bill. They left the restaurant and walked down the block to buy ice cream at the Grand Creamery.
“You know the one thing I like about coming to the Cities?” Floyd asked as he tried to catch the drips of melting ice cream before they ran down his waffle cone. “You have more than three restaurants to choose from.”
“That’s the one highlight of your trip? Eating somewhere new?”
“Well, that and not having to worry that someone I arrested will walk up behind me to stick a knife in my back.” Floyd paused, “It might be a complete stranger who stabs me here.”
“What do you think happened to Aaron Roberts?” Laurie asked as they walked down Grand Avenue in the light early afternoon crowd.
“A week ago I would’ve guessed that he’d been picked up by a trucker and caught a ride to some big city after abandoning his car at a rest stop. Then, later he got cross-ways with someone and ended up dead in a dumpster to never be seen again.”
“You said Aaron’s car was found in a rest stop on the interstate. Do you remember if it still had gas?”
“I’m not sure. We spent a lot of hours searching the area around the rest stop for a body. At the time we suspected foul play.”
“I assume you checked out the interior for blood.”
“Yeah. We didn’t find any. But the state-of-the-art in crime scene investigation has advanced so far since then. We didn’t even pick up on possible semen stains in the backseat from the rape of the Smith girl. Now I’d be checking with Luminol and we might pick up all kinds of bodily fluids.”
“Let’s back it up to that night, knowing what you do now,” Laurie said. “If Aaron was left somewhere to die, how would the car get to the rest stop?”
“After dumping Aaron’s body, Ken drove away in Aaron’s car, then someone drove it to the rest area and left it,” Floyd said. “Assuming that the only ones involved were the six people at the bar together, that probably means one of them picked Ken up and drove him home.”
“You said that Mike Nelson and Betsy Ring left the others earlier in the evening. So that leaves three others. Melissa Smith’s story seems tight, and I can’t imagine her participating in anything else after being raped. So the remaining culprits are Ken Solstad and Kathy Tucker. Ken drives Aaron’s car to the rest stop and Kathy picks him up. He’s home in time to catch a nap before leaving for Missouri.”
“There’s one hole in that,” Floyd said after considering the scenario. “Kathy was so drunk that she couldn’t remember what happened. That would leave her incapable of driving.”
“She claimed to be too drunk to remember what happened. That doesn’t mean she was too drunk to remember or participate.” Laurie thought for a second and then added, “Who’s to say that Mike and Betsy’s alibis are solid? They said they were together, but there’s no one else to corroborate the story. Maybe Ken called one of them to pick him up.”
“Well,” Floyd said, “there’s still the possibility that someone other than the five others had something to do with Aaron’s disappearance. There were another two and a half million people in Minnesota that night and I’ll bet half of them don’t have alibis.”
Laurie shook her head. “It’s someone local and someone who was with Ken Solstad because the picture was in his camera. It has to be someone who knows the case has been reopened. Who else would leave the note at your house?”
Floyd stopped and took off his cap. “There’s something nagging at me. The wording in the note is so close to something said by another person. I just can’t remember who it was.”
“Let’s focus on something else for a second,” Laurie suggested. “Assuming Aaron is dead, someone’s got a dead body to deal with. It’s December, so the ground is usually frozen. What do you do with it?”
“You can’t bury it or drop it in a lake,” Floyd said, “but the standard, ‘drop it in the swamp’ works as long as there are cattails or long swamp grass. What bothers me more is why Ken would take a picture of Aaron cut up and tied to a tree.”
“People take pictures,” Laurie said, “of things they want to remember, or they take them for someone else to see. I can’t imagine that Ken wanted to remember Aaron tied to a tree. So, why would he want to show someone else that picture?”
“To brag, to scare them, to show them how tough he is.” Floyd paused. “I’m way too sleepy to be doing this. Take me back to my car so I can weave my way back home.”
“What if we’re looking way too deeply at this,” Laurie said as she drove back to the BCA headquarters. “Were any of the parents being evasive? Would any of them have motive to eliminate Aaron?”